Terrain Corner – Trees

The big thing about wargaming is its a huge hobby. Its not just spending time painting the amazing armies that we use, its also the field of battle we choose to fight on.

I have to say I actually find painting the terrain to be a lot more fun that the miniatures. I think its because it’s a little more forgiving. With that in mind I thought I’d throw up a small tutorial on how I do my tree’s.

Now don’t get me wrong the trees you can buy are okay, though we commonly call them bog brush trees because of the look. For me though I want my tree’s to look, well like trees.

I buy Woodland Scenics armatures, the pack i tend to get has mixed heights so that it gives me a good selection of trees. The armatures themselves cost between £12-15 depending on where you buy them or what type. The pack also makes 12 Trees so that’s a fair amount.

When it comes to flocking the tree its one of the first things you have to decide. If you search online you’ll find loads of options from Lichen to Scouring pads, Sponge and Clump Foliage. I tend to use the Clump Foliage as its very easy to use and you get loads of it in the packet. It doesn’t look like much till you open the bag and it unsquashes.

I also like to base the tree’s to stop them falling over, the little bases they give you are not going to keep it upright. I tend to use 40/50mm MDF bases as I find they are more than enough to stop it being knocked over easily. Now the armatures bend without any trouble, but I like to dip them in hot water as it makes it a whole lot easier to do the shaping.

Reading online there is a huge amount of ways to secure the foliage onto the actual armatures. I tend to go for a very heavy handed and secure the first parts of the trees with cheap superglue. I then shape the tree adding bits as i go.

Once i’m happy with how the tree looks I let the foliage dry for a while. The superglue alone isn’t enough to hold the tree together so after a few hours i give the trees a good spray of a PVA/Water mix. About 1 part of PVA to 7 parts water, this gets left overnight and then if needs be i give it a second coat of the same.

Now you can keep it going, adding say Noch leaves sprinkled on the wet PVA to add depth. You could even look at adding fruit if your that way inclined as well. The great thing about the armatures is you could cover them in brushed cotton wool and use them in swamps or for Frostgrave even. For me I tend to just flock the base, add a bit of static grass and that’s me done.

The scale of the trees work for a lot of different games, i use them not only in 28/32mm games like Arcworlde above, but also to represent the huge forests of Trudvang that I play at 15mm for the Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and if you have any questions the comments box is always open.